Russian forensic report on Arafat's Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/killing-arafat/russian-forensic-report-arafat-death-20131189959812216.html

<comment><AUTHOR> only 17 pages - very short compared to the much-discussed report yesterday from the Swiss:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6684314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6684314)</comment>


Apple tracks when you are close to an Apple Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6437512679371481088/ <comment><USER2> Apps are allowed to track your location in the background. If you go into the Location Privacy settings in Settings, you should see that "Apple Store" is set to always.

Additionally, I bet they're using some iBeacons to track when you enter the store. These work over Bluetooth LE and the phone can do different things when it hits a nearby beacon.</comment>


Completely Silent Computer - <AUTHOR> https://tp69.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/completely-silent-computer/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thinks of smartphones and tablets as silent computers?

Granted, they can't do what this person's high-spec workstation can do, but they do most of the computing tasks most people use (used) noisy fanned computers with clacking disks for and in many cases do those tasks better.

And unless I'm just losing my hearing, my smartphone is _completely_ silent as long as I don't accidentally press the Golem Invoker, er, Siri button.

<comment><USER3> The MacBook is (at least in theory) noiseless as well. It has an SSD and no fans.

<comment><USER4> Funnily enough, my MacBook Air 2013 produces a buzzing sound on SSD access. It's barely audible, but it's there.

<comment><USER5> Oh...it's not just me then.. Every couple of months I check my 2015 MacBook Pro system info because I'm utterly convinced that it has an hard drive because of the SSD noise. It's quite frustrating actually..

<comment><USER6> Imagine being a kid in the 80s or 90s at school and hearing the distinctive 20k tone of a CRT Television humming and wondering if you were going to be watching TV in one of your classes that day. It was like a dog whistle for kids.

<comment><USER7> If you're in the US or anywhere else with NTSC, the horizontal scan rate (and thus the whine of the flyback transformer) is 15.75 kHz :)

525 lines / 2 for interlacing * 60 fields per second = 15750

<comment><USER8> times 1000/1001 ever since color was introduced, so about 15734 Hz

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the past when I tried to build a silent PC, I found that even after removing / stopping all the fans, there was still often an electronic humm or buzz left over. That is when I gave up.

Later I changed desks to one that had one of those built in computer cabinets made of thick particle board. That did as much to silence a pc as all the tens of hours of effort I had put into meticulously researching and specc'ing the build before.

<comment><USER10> The only time I achieved silence was when I moved the computer case outside the room and used a 2m VGA cable and USB chord extenders. That silence was weird though. No audio feedback at all from the computer, just the clicking of keyboard and the mouse.

<comment><USER11> I did exactly that too!

I was tired of the never-ending quest for silence, so I bought 3 50-ft dvi cables and a couple usb-3 cables of the same length and put the PC in the attic.

It worked great, except any hardware issues resulted in a trip to the attic.

<comment><USER10> Did you leave the machine always on ?

<comment><USER11> Pretty much. I've never really shut down my main machines when i'm not using them.

I work from home, so i'm on it several hours every workday, combined with the fact that I tend to have multiple things in-progress all the time means it would be a giant pain in the ass to shut it down fully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > (Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The > whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure > and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)

That's a silly and extremist position to take. "insecure" is relative, not absolute. It's a certainty that the software he's running has far more quantity of vulnerabilities and a much longer history of them. I don't know his exact use case, but arguably his use case isn't one where Spectre is particularly more severe than even a userland, non-priv-escalation vuln. (eg ransomware doesn't require root access to hold all your files hostage.)

> Eliminate the moving parts (e.g. fans, HDDs) and you eliminate the noise — > it's not that complicated.

Ha! And yet it deserved a detailed blog post. I'm surprised he would say this even after the amount of effort he spent.

<comment><USER13> After having purchased an AMD GPU, they would have to pay me for me to buy anything from AMD ever again.

<comment><USER14> Their CPUs are pretty good, their GPUs are pretty good, however their GPU drivers are terrible, especially under linux.

<comment><USER15> what? It's the exact __opposite __, their GPU drivers are great on Linux. I 've literally never had a problem with AMDGPU.

Also, you can't even compare NVidia's drivers to them, since they don't even _support_ Wayland properly!

<comment><USER16> you're probably getting downvoted because of your 'never'.

AMD linux support was downright abysmal pre ~2015.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One can make a passive build much more powerful.

NSG S0, once out, will most likely be the go-to case for such setups. Until then, an HDPLEX H5 is cool.

My desk has a H5 on it, housing an i7 8700 (non-K) and a GTX 1060. The TIM under the heatspreader is replaced with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is used as every other TIM that the case setup needs. The CPU is on stock clocks with a voltage offset of -30 mV. The GPU has the power target reduced to 90% and clocks increased by 130 MHz, so that it is effectively undervolted as well. The PSU is a Seasonic Ultra Prime Titanium 650. Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps, but is a very unrealistic load. Non-AVX stress tests and FurMark take a while to start throttling (20 minutes?), as the thermal capacity of the aluminum case is quite big. After hours of gaming, the GPU and CPU float around 80 C while providing full stock performance. I don't do 3D rendering (other than in-game) or video en/decoding, so have not had long, real-world, full loads to see how temperatures behave with those.

From the discussion I've had and forums I've read, I think that people are afraid of putting more power in passive cases and having their components at "high" temperatures, despite those being rated for them.

<comment><USER18> >Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps, but is a very unrealistic load

I suppose blender would thermal throttle the cpu as well. If you run any non- Xeon/non-Laptop Intel chip (greater than 2k series) and care about temperatures - delid the bugger. (Xeons are soldered, laptop chips don't have IHS). Intel uses something that's worse than toothpaste, plus tons of glue between the die and the IHS. If you see temperature deltas under full load more than 9-10C between the cores, the thermal paste between the die and the IHS might have missing spots or have dried out. In your case removal of the IHS altogether would provide decent results.

You might wish to check the VRMs, they are rated at 125C but if the case is hellishly hot inside, they might not be able to dissipate the heat.

<comment><USER19> Somewhat unrelated, but maybe you can shoot me down since you seem to have some experience?

Metal is an incredibly good conductor on its own, and the properties of thermal paste (typically) are just barely better than air. So long as your cpu and heatsink are fairly flat surfaces and mashed together physically, it seems like either forgoing or having the absolute minimum amount of paste is ideal. I've used a razor to leave an absolutely minimal layer of paste (e.g. filling in sub-millimeter surface structure) on my latest build, and cpu temperatures are well within a reasonable range. But I'm also not trying to OC the cpu or anything.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER18> >...and the properties of thermal paste (typically) are just barely better than air.

I am not certain how you have managed to come to such a conclusion. Thermal conductivity of air is around 0.03W/(m·K)[0]. Good thermal, non-conductive paste is like 12.5W/(m·K)[1] (or 400 times better than air). Conductive ones are in the region of ~40-80 W/(m·K) and Aluminium is 237W/(m·K). Also air also expands pushing the cooler and CPU away.

Normally you if choose between "too much" and "too little" paste, you pick the former. The pressure pushes out the unneeded amounts.

[0]: [https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity- d_42...](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html) [1]: [http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut- en](http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-en)

<comment><USER19> Don't, you need to multiply the raw conductivity by the linear distance occupied by the thermal paste? I presume that distance will be at least two orders of magnitude larger than that occupied by air in a metal contact only setup.

I would be extremely surprised if increased pressure due to air at higher temperature played any role whatsoever unless the bolts connecting the heatsink and cpu were very loose. If anything, I'd expect the increased conductivity of air at higher temperatures to dominate.

I'd also expect there to be effects at the metal-paste and paste-metal interfaces which reduce the effective system conductivity (i.e. phonons are much more likely to reflect in this scenario than in a metal-metal interface).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Clearly a work of passion and I appreciate OP sharing.

I enjoyed earlier days of "Silent PC" building, ten or fifteen years ago. For example, building a silent tower or desktop for a DAW or softsynth back then in a recording/studio environment required some ingenuity. SSD? Not on a hobbiest budget. I recall one build, not mine, fully immersed in a bucket of oil (mineral?) for passive heat dispersion.

Today, as a new reference point, any MacBook Pro within the last few years may qualify as truly silent for many people's everyday usage. It does for me. And when I do heat up the CPU/GPU with heavy tasks, the fans spin up but then they go away completely as soon as the hard work is done. Back to silent.

No more spinning platters or crappy fan bearings or poorly engineering airflow nowadays. :-)

There's no hacker pride in buying off-the-shelf, so the performance bar for DIY is higher. Progress!

<comment><USER21> I'm glad you enjoyed the post. My first silencing attempt (in the early 1990s) was to seal a hard disk in what amounted to little more than a couple of oven bags, custom-make a long IDE cable, and then — literally — dangle the drive in a bucket of water that was under the desk the computer sat on. That ended poorly, with thermal cycling inducing microfractures in the bags, which resulted in leaks, a dead drive and a blown controller on the motherboard. Ah well, we live and learn. Take it easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This says that a completely silent computer would be 0dB. But it's a logarithmic scale, so I think it should say -Infinity dB.

This is admittedly pointless pedantry.

<comment><USER12> He's using the term incorrectly to begin with so corrections aren't really possible.

Of course it can't be completely silent. Heat generates air movement which is "sound".

By 0dB he means 0dB SPL which is give or take correct.

<comment><USER23> If the air moves at a constant speed I don't think you'd get sound. Any fluctuations probably won't be in the audible spectrum, although whether that still counts as 'silent' is more of a philosophical question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So these sorts of builds are way harder than they look. You need to spend a good amount of time planning out motherboards, and willing to go back to the shop to buy another motherboard (because this motherboard might have a big honking capacitor where you expected to run a heat-pipe).

So you either need to carefully look at pictures / guestimate the location of components, or hope that someone else on the internet has figured it all out for you. Alternatively, you could just be ridiculously lucky.

But I don't really believe in luck personally. If this guy has been doing these builds for as long as he claims, he probably had a fair bit of thought go into the particulars of this build. The kinds of thoughts that don't go very well into blog posts because they're uninteresting (but very important). Like, does X combination of components fit or do I do Y instead?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>

With respect to the build itself: I'm surprised he was able to get 60+W CPU and a 60+W GPU in there. Most silent builds I see basically use laptop parts (30W or less) to keep the heat down.

32gb of RAM will be plenty, and 8 Zen-cores is plenty strong. The GPU is a bit weak for gaming, but he should be able to play plenty of the lower-end games without much issue, even at 1080p / 60fps (probably Overwatch for example). He probably can't run Witcher3 at 4k on Ultra, but such a GPU would blow out his thermal-design completely.

<comment><USER21> Yep, it took weeks to finalise the parts. I had to contact multiple vendors and get them to check component heights, track down motherboard layouts, compare review photos from different angles, plan heatpipe runs, resolve conflicts with VRM heatsinks and power connectors, watch assembly/review videos over and over again, scrutinise manuals, determine hardware/OS incompatibilities... probably well over 80 hours of work before I could even order the parts.

But, like you say, even though I had done all that, there was still the possibility that I might have missed something and would need to return/replace some parts and rework the plan. My mouse hovered over the "Order" button for quite a while before I finally committed. An anxious moment.

Virtually none of that methodical and boring research/prep work made it into the post — it's just not that interesting. Necessary, yes, but not something that the vast majority of readers would want to read.

The setup should be able to handle a 105W CPU and 75W GPU. At this point 65 + 75W is confirmed. When I OC the 1600 I should be able to verify up to ~95 + 75W.

The strategy was to start with a really well engineered passive case, then select components that could be pushed right up to the thermal limits. It's worked well so far. I'll keep publishing all of my test results for those that may be interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm pretty happy with my setup. My garage shares a wall with my living room, so I put the tower out there. I then ran high quality, 25' long dvi and usb cables to the desk in my living room.

Edit: I currently have two gtx1050 in it running at full power, and can't hear the fans at all.

<comment><USER26> Personally, I just don't like computing at a distance. I actually like hearing things like fan noise or hard drive sounds, as long as they're not incessant, because it can serve as a subtle notification that the computer might be doing something in the background that I might not have realized otherwise.

<comment><USER27> But then a silent build wouldn't be interesting to you at all. The garage idea is good for someone who does want Silent computing.

<comment><USER26> Hmm, I guess. I think my MacBook Pro strikes a nice balance: it's silent 95% of the time, and I get some fans up when I run builds or something hangs in the background.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> All of my raspberry pi's are completely silent.

On a more serious note, would it be possible to achieve said silence without too much compromise by some variant of water cooling, with a good sized reservoir? And use the heat to drive circulation rather than a pump?

<comment><USER29> Maybe, but it is tricky.

Because there is no pump the water will flow much slower, therefore you need much bigger pipes. Think at least 3x the diameter you would think you need.

Also because you are depending on thermo siphon you have to ensure you have to ensure the water flow works with gravity. The heat source must be at bottom, and the radiator must be at the top. You don't get any flexibility go around something that might be in the way, the pipes must always be sloped in the correct direction.

If you are using anything other than water you need to pay attention to specific gravity (and how it changes with temperature), and viscosity. Probably something else that I'm not thinking of.

It probably can work. I have an antique tractor that uses such a system. A 2.2L, 16hp engine, has 24L of coolant, and the pipes between the engine and radiator are noticeably bigger than my truck with a 7.3L 250HP engine. Remember that this was designed to run at just under the boiling point of water (antifreeze is too modern). You probably want your computer considerably cooler, which implies even larger systems than a similar active one.

<comment><USER28> What kind of tractor?

<comment><USER29> 1939 John Deere B. My Grandpa bought it in the mid 1960s, for $300, my dad drove it home. Now it is mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you are interested in this topic then [http://www.silentpcreview.com/](http://www.silentpcreview.com/) is your friend, they have been doing this since 2002 although certainly activity has been lees the last few years. The forums are also good.

<comment><USER31> Activity has ceased unfortunately. The last articles are from 2016.

<comment><USER32> That's a shame; they've been my go-to resource for my last three builds or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> IME components need to be selected for low coil whine (and the related brethren, namely electrostriction and piezoelectrics), because it easily dwarfs (both in loudness and annoyance) the air flow and fan noise of a well- built air-cooled machine.

</comment><comment><USER34> Hm, this reminds me of two interesting tidbits.

One is the good old P1 125Mhz router we had like 10 - 15 years ago. The only active cooling in that system was in the PSU and that thing throttled it's fan off during normal operation. It had zero moving parts outside of the PSU. You couldn't even get fans for those CPUs. These old systems were fun :)

And beyond that, this makes me think of the computer requirements of coal mines, and I think mining in general. In a mine, a piece of compute has a defined maximum energy emission per square inch surface. If you exceed that, you risk coal dust explosions, which are rather inconvenient, loud and adverse to throughput. The stuff in the article is very similar to industrial computers in such a setup. Quite interesting.

<comment><USER35> At my college, we had a bar with a custom account management system (it managed the credit of each students).

The thing was all text/ncurses.

The terminal was an under-clocked PII, with all the fans removed and connected to the server using a serial cable and it was kind of necessary since the environment was quite hostile and sticky (spilled beer, some fat deposit, etc).

If I recall correctly before the PII, it was a VT-100 console, so even more basic than the PII.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A long time ago I was dreaming of a completely silent computer and bought the Antec 350 for my birthday. [https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec- phantom-350w-psu/](https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec-phantom-350w-psu/)

It cannot power a single mid-range video card today or pretty much any modern equipment. I would have loved to be able to use it.

Anybody making fanless PSU's today?

<comment><USER37> Seasonic does. They make excellent power supplies. I've used a 400w fanless in a media center PC, but they also make higher wattage units like this for example: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium- fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)

<comment><USER38> A higher wattage than 400W is utterly pointless for a fanless PSU; if you need to dissipate constant loads of >400W of heat, you will need a fan somewhere (exotic options like mineral oil cooling aside).

<comment><USER39> Well you can always add absurd amounts of surface area and mass to the heat sinks to take advantage of thermal inertia, or possibly change components to simply raise your safe operating temperatures to absurd levels. But that's pretty involved. Spacecraft take care of huge temperatures with no fans or even conductive or convective cooling. But that requires enormous, sail-sized surfaces to take advantage of extremely slow radiative cooling.

It would be an exotic option for sure. And not something you'll find pre- built.

<comment><USER40> [http://fanlessfan.com/](http://fanlessfan.com/)

Massive heat sink you say?

This is cpu and gpu fully passive. Amazing. But $1000.

<comment><USER39> Wow. That thing has more surface area than a motorcycle engine. I guess it really needs it with such a relatively low temperature gradient, not to mention the absence of airflow from movement. I'd love to see how that really performs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Completely silent and zero time boot are the two features I still miss from my C64. The only thing that came close in the meantime was my Palm III, but it wasn't a desktop computer. To be fair I rarely boot a device (be it mobile or notebook) nowadays, but still..

</comment><comment><USER42> Nice article. About two years ago I wanted to make my pc completely silent as well. It turned out that the cheapest solution for me was to put the pc in another room that I don't sit in and put long hdmi + USB cables through the wall. I also soldered on a longer cable with a power button so I can start the pc from my room. The only downside for me is that I had to run cables along my walls through a conduit but I think in total I paid less than 40€.

<comment><USER43> "How long HDMI cable do I need to call this a cloud?" :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > The whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system > insecure and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel > CPUs.

Is any system honestly 100% "securable"? I would argue that any computer, regardless of cpu manufacturer, is "unsecurable".

<comment><USER45> A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure. Just not very useful.

I imagine any computer that approaches maximum security also approaches minimum utility.

Presumably the author just thinks that Intel is a little too low on security compared to the other offerings, and not that the other offerings are actually "secure".

<comment><USER26> > A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure.

Information can be extracted from airgapped computers by measuring magnetic fluctuations, so this isn't quite true!

<comment><USER45> I suppose that would count as an output mechanism then, wouldn't it?

Perhaps it is impossible to build a computer without an output mechanism.

<comment><USER46> If you're going to count all possible side channels as output mechanisms, then I'd imagine that it is indeed impossible to build a computer without an output mechanism.

Unless you limit your scope to say, Earth, and somehow build a computer outside of Earth's light cone. It is thus causally disconnected from Earth and has no output mechanisms that can be read from anyone on Earth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> There is one flaw in his setup, he doesn't seem to cool the VRMs of his video card (only memory chips). Not doing that is asking for trouble when load is put on the card.

<comment><USER48> You can fanless video cards of the same spec as in the article (1050ti) e.g at [https://www.quietpc.com/palit- ne5105t018g1-1070h](https://www.quietpc.com/palit-ne5105t018g1-1070h)

(I can personally recommend both the vendor and the card!)

<comment><USER47> For these cards the giant heatsink is connected to the VRMs so cooling is a non issue. In OP's pictures, he seems to have replaced the heatsink of his card with one from the case without cooling the VRMs.

From personal experience, I tried to silent cool an RX 550 (50 watt vs 75 watt of 1050 ti) without VRM heatsink and the VRM temnperatures were up to 100-103C during a torture test. Adding a fan lowered the temperatures by 20C.

<comment><USER49> Both the hi-side and lo-side mosfets (they might be 2in1 on a card like this) are rated for their amperage at 125c and are typically capable of dissipating that through their contact with the pcb. Airflow is nice, but not required. Neither is direct contact with a heatsink. Those are for higher end cards (who also rate their mosfets at 125c for good reasons. Max tCase for mosfets is usually 150c. Beyond that they just die.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Quick note for everyone who might want to build a mostly-quiet home theatre PC. There are several versions of the geforce1030 that use passive cooling/no fans. With H265 acceleration in the GPU drivers, more than fast enough for 2160p, 60fps movies in VLC. They're right around $85.

Same basic chip architecture as the much more expensive 1070/1080\. Not something you'd want to run newer 3D games on, but perfect for media center use.

<comment><USER51> Last time I've looked there was a passive cooled 1050 GeForce model and an equivalent (more or less) from Amd that I don't recall the name.

<comment><USER50> There are several passively cooled geforce1050 (not ti), but you really don't need it for any form of 4k video. My output setup is to a 70" 60Hz TV over HDMI 2.0, with a ryzen 1500X that is slightly overclocked, this setup handled 2160p60 H265 up to around 300 Mbps, at which point it CPU bottlenecks. Which is a vastly greater bitrate than any bluray or torrented 4K content.

If you wanted a setup slightly more capable of 3D games then the 1050 would definitely be a consideration.

<comment><USER51> Well, 300 Mb/s it's a lot of headspace, it's nearly nine times the bandwidth of a Bluray. ^__^

I'm itching to stuff one of the recently release Raven Ridge APUs in a 3 liters case with a PicoPSU and have a portable, reasonably powerful desktop that I can stuff in a backpack, I'm waiting for a little more mature Linux support, at least a stable 2.4.17 kernel...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Stupid question from a non-hardware guy. If you wanted a completely silent computer, could you build one in a vacuum chamber and just suck all the air out?

<comment><USER53> Yeah, but without air, the heat won't dissapate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> As someone who has used the fanless 12" Retina MacBook, I can't put in words how nice of a feeling it is to have a fully silent computer. It's hard to understand why without actually experiencing it yourself, but it was a really big deal. If not for the awful keyboard ruining the experience, I wouldn't ever give it up.

It may sound (no pun intended) like an exaggeration, but I think more powerful computers going completely silent (fanless) will be the next most noticeable breakthrough since we got Retina displays on computers in 2012.

<comment><USER21> Yes, the feeling you get from pure silence is hard to put into words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> My Xiaomi Air 12 Laptop is completely silent, fanless and uses SSD. Very happy with it and it comes like that out of the box.

[https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html](https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html)

<comment><USER56> I got mine last week, pleasantly surprised at how good it was considering the price. The display is gorgeous and linux support is excellent. Far from usual experience with linux on laptops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57>
        It can't be heard from 1cm away

I doubt that. A while back I removed all of the moving parts from an old 486 and netbooted it, only to find out I could actually hear the network card making very faint screeching noises whenever there was network activity. You've probably heard the same effect on a much larger scale, at much lower frequency, when you hear the 60Hz hum of a "silent" transformer.

</comment><comment><USER58> I thought AMD processors were also susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre. The author mentions Intel's vulnerabilities as a reason for choosing AMD

<comment><USER59> They weren't vulnerable to Meltdown, only Spectre. The author expands on what happened to his particular PC in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Kinda unfortunate timing for him that AMD released Ryzen 5 2400GE about the time as the article was written, which seems like pretty much perfect chip for silent reasonably powerful computer. Sure, it might not be quite as beefy as his 1600+1050Ti combo, but the energy efficiency should be much better. 2400GE is rated at 35W, while 1600+1050Ti is at 65W+75W=140W, or full four times more.

<comment><USER21> Yep, you can't always wait for the perfect product to come along — sometimes circumstances force your hand.

Not only did that processor not exist at the time, but even if it did there were going to be a bunch of compatibility issues with it on Ubuntu (like there always are when new hardware is released). I simply didn't want to have to deal with those sorts of issues for — potentially — months.

Maybe the Ryzen 5 3400G(E) will be a compelling upgrade? We shall see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> > "(Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The > whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure > and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)"

This is just random FUD.

(1) AMD boards are vulnerable to Spectre - [https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution- previ...](https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution-previous- updates).

(2) There are other vulnerabilities that affect AMD boards - [https://community.amd.com/community/amd- corporate/blog/2018/...](https://community.amd.com/community/amd- corporate/blog/2018/03/21/initial-amd-technical-assessment-of-cts-labs- research)

(3) Vulnerabilities are found everywhere. That's not the first time vulnerabilities are found, and it won't be the last. How is that an argument for anything exactly?

<comment><USER62> But not to meltdown and AMD did not try to spin it as "everbody is just as vulnerable as us, move along" like Intel did.

Irrespective of how serious you consider these vulnerabilities, the way Intel handled them can very well be a "final straw".

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Silent Pcs are hard, however the simplest way to make your PC silent is to put it elsewhere....

I worked at a VFX company, where we did interactive client sessions (think: zoom! enhance!) which required a totally silent setup. In somecases that meant trying to silence an entire rack of disks (baselite 8,[http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/ba...](http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/baselight.html) big glowing thing at the bottom of the page)

Obviously this is impossible, so we used DVI senders ([https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design- mic...](https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design-micro- converter-sdi-to- hdmi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk8en9fKJ2wIVlIXVCh36ngJ_EAQYAiABEgK8o_D_BwE) they are HDMI nowadays) and remote USB

This has the advantage that we can have a full bore machine with no compromises.

<comment><USER64> I just put the machine to a closet and buy long cords for all peripherals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Congratulations tp69! The article details how miners made it difficult to procure components for the build, but the irony is that the miners might be specifically interested in this build for its power efficiency.

A decade ago, I was obsessed with fans and at one point I had more than 10 in my workstation. The noise it created kind of resonated with me, like I would be able to tell when the job was CPU intensive, HDD or GPU; I guess it felt more lively!

But after the smartphone boom, I got more adhered to power efficient, noise less systems (Smartphone/Tablet/SBC's/Chromebook) & after the meltdown spectre (pun intended) my adherence got reinforced.

Anyone looking for low-cost completely silent yet portable system in laptop form-factor can take a look at Chromebooks, now that Google has announced Linux apps support it's usefulness would tend to grow.

</comment><comment><USER66> Compulab Airtop makes a VR ready tiny gaming rig i7 gtx1060 that is similar. There are very few fanless rigs with discrete graphics for gamer and workstation use like this that I can find: [http://airtop- pc.com](http://airtop-pc.com)

</comment><comment><USER67> Raspberry Pi + i3 + Chromium + Emacs = <3

100% quiet, not super fast, but fast enough.

</comment><comment><USER68> I wanted complete silence too, but realized it's way easier to just move the PC elsewhere. I moved it into an adjacent room, made a small hole in the wall for cables (10M hdmi+usb+audio) and that was it, it worked perfectly. The price was trivial - about $40 total for cables. I already had a usb extension hub.

Sadly, that's only useful for 60Hz, as high refresh rates require a short displayport cable to work. For this reason I no longer use this solution.

If you're ok with 60Hz and have compatible room layout I recommend this. The biggest advantage is that it's completely PC agnostic, which makes upgrades way easier, as standard cooling solutions are fine.

</comment><comment><USER69> I bought an HD-Plex case to use with the 35W AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE processor w/ integrated GPU which was just launched. Looking forward to using it.

[https://www.hdplex.com/](https://www.hdplex.com/)

<comment><USER70> You wont be disappointed. I've been running a router/kodi-box machine with a low power i5 in their h1 case for almost 4 years now, it works like a charm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Not quite the same thing but... I'm in the middle of building a totally silent Retro DOS machine. Using an old low-spec passively cooled VIA Mini-ITX motherboard in a small case[1] with a passively cooled internal PSU. The storage is an SD card on the main IDE channel. The motherboard also has hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB support, so all the DOS games sound really great! [2]

I've just written a front end launcher for the apps/games, and I found some working USB drivers for DOS that makes transferring software over nice and easy.

I'll probably post a Show HN when I'm done.

\---

[1] 22cm x 22cm x 4cm

[2] DOOM as it was _meant_ to be heard.

<comment><USER72> Which model VIA mb? And what do you mean by "hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB support" \- do you have to run a TSR to make it work?

<comment><USER71> EPIA 5000 Motherboard. The chipset on the Motherboard directly includes Soundblaster, ADLib, and MPU-401 support. You can enable/disable each one in the BIOS.

And yes, you need the EPIA Soundblaster drivers for DOS, but that's not that different from normal Soundblaster cards. It was a bit of an uphill struggle getting it working, but it's quite simple once you get the right version of the drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This was a major selling point of MacBook–it had no fans whatsoever, making it completely silent even under load.

</comment><comment><USER73> I've heard noise (high-frequency whine, changing depending on load) from my laptop power supply at times, I think. I wonder if that's not a problem for some reason on desktop power supplies.

<comment><USER74> It can be a problem, also with PC psus. Not all of them have coil whine, and it depends on the connected components, but it definitely happens.

In my case it is the monitor that of all my components has the worst coil whine (actually the PWM brightness regulation).

<comment><USER75> In my case also, unless I set the sound volume of built in speakers to 0. Since they are not connected anyway that solves it for me. It is still annoying that we have to put up with this though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Alternatively, you could put your computer in a tank of mineral oil.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4)

<comment><USER77> There's also using ARM, Calyos stuff[0]

Some old Macs were also 'potentially' silent if you were to today remove the HDD and the optical drive, which were the only mechanical parts[1].

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis)

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube)

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I made a similar build but with the Streacom FC9 Alpha case. I put a slim 1050Ti in there and replaced the GPU fans with Nuctua 1cm thick 9,2cm fan with Zalman Fan Mate 2 that I turn up when I play games. I have to run it without lid though, as any computer I have really, convection is your friend.

I also went with 32GB RAM because I make multiplayer games and I need to be able to run multiple clients at the same time which takes alot of memory.

This build is my last computer, peak moores law will make it so.

</comment><comment><USER43> For gaming I occasionaly rent an instance on Paperspace and play through Parsecgaming client (1440p@60fps, <10 ms lag). Totally quiet when a PC is in Amsterdam datacenter :).

</comment><comment><USER79> _" For what I will be doing with this computer"_

Would love to know what application this was built for.

As a recording studio enthusiast, I can appreciate the pursuit of silent PCs.

What other use cases?

<comment><USER21> It's my new daily driver. I do everything on it except play games. My previous rig is now dedicated to that task.

So we have the usual suspects: Watching videos and movies, staying abreast of current affairs, listening to music.

Then some not so-usual suspects: Research and self-education, software development, and a simulation that I've been running and tweaking for several years.

This computer is on for an average of about 15 hours every day of the week, and is pretty-much always doing something. It spends virtually no uptime idling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> It is my ongoing mission to find completely silent phone and laptop chargers and PC monitor.

I have three monitors and a laptop and not one is inaudible. They all become inaudible when I set their brightness to 100% but this is not acceptable to me.

I was able to mostly fix my Dell U3011 by replacing power supply capacitors.

These were placed in worst possible spot, bathing in hot ascending air assuring shortened lifespan. One could wonder if it was done intentionally...

</comment><comment><USER81> I've built a fanless desktop too last year. Because I only use it for browsing and as a media player, I've chosen a 35w i3 CPU with integrated GPU. This way I could use a cheap semi-fanless PSU - which never switches on its fan - because the system just never exceeds its consumption limit.

Because of the 35W CPU, the system was cheap and easy to build.

What I have learned from it, is that my screen has a silent buzzing sound... :)

<comment><USER82> try turning the brightness up or down. I had the same issue with many of my monitors and this would sometimes fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Nice, but it won't work with higher end parts like Vega 56. They are just way too hot by design.

There was also some ready solution like this, that used heat dissipation through the walls of the case: [https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow- technology/](https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/)

</comment><comment><USER84> I am both impressed and left wondering "Why go through such trouble?" Not in a dismissive way but an inquisitive one since it has been such a long term goal. I can see some power usage reasons given how much fans use and that noise like heat is a proxy for inefficiency whenever it isln't the direct goal but that isn't his main goal.

<comment><USER21> Ratiofarmings is on the right track. The noise coming from the computer drowns out the subtle sounds of life all around me.

Someone suggested in the comments that I should just wear earplugs instead. This was my response to him: "But the rest of the world doesn't make annoying noises that I want to block out — only the computer does. I still want to hear the birds tweeting in the trees and the wind blowing past the awnings and the rain hitting the roof and the ice-cream truck driving by and my wife chuckling at something she's watching and the cats running along the floor and the microwave oven heating a meal and the kettle finishing its boil. I'm not trying to disconnect from the rest of the world — I'm trying to reconnect to it."

A lot of the most interesting and enjoyable sounds in life are very, very faint. It doesn't take much noise to drown them out. Even a single fan will do it. Now I can hear those noises and get 'work' done at the same time. It's really hard to describe, but 'magical' comes close.

Thanks for asking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Just wait a little longer before making a judgment. Some noise from coils and capacitors might start to emerge during heavy load.

<comment><USER21> If something starts making a noise I'll update my posts and let people know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Hardware Canucks covers the Streacom case in the article.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E)

Of interest, "Jay's Two Cents" did this clickbaity video where they daisy chain 4 radiators together. This would be one of those entertainment value only stunts, except that they discovered that they could shut off all the fans. Having only a pump running, you can passively cool both the top-end CPU and a high-end GPU. If someone can put the pump inside a nice machined aluminum case, this could be a DIY recipe for a fanless silent PC.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM)

</comment><comment><USER87> This is a wonderful project. It looks very sharp and has pretty good components.

However, it's usually significantly better, cheaper and easier to build an "almost" silent system, just by using good heatsinks and very slow fans. A small amount of airflow is usually significantly better than none at all.

</comment><comment><USER88> I really enjoyed this post, the author seems passionate and really happy to have achieved their dream

<comment><USER21> Thanks, and you're right — I am. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why not just put the computer in the adjacent different room and install a DisplayPort and USB patch panel on each side of the wall? Monitor and peripherals in one room and the computer on the other side. It's what I would do if I owned a house.

</comment><comment><USER89> I've had much success with fanless industrial computers for certain applications in certain environments. Seeing someone do it manually though is super cool (especially the vram chip heatsinks... why have I never thought of that before?!)

</comment><comment><USER90> Speaking of noisy computers and electronics, I designed a PCB with an ESP32 bluetooth/WiFi chip on it. I'm far from an expert in board design, and my board unsurprisingly emits a buzz when the Wifi/BT radio is transmitting or receiving. It's interesting though, when it's using BLE you can hear the frequency hopping as it changes channels, and then you get entirely different sounds when it stops BLE and uses just WiFi. But yeah I should probably fix that...

Possibly caused by the piezoelectric effect on an SMD ceramic capacitor, making it vibrate and hit the PCB surface at an audible frequency.

</comment><comment><USER91> I finally got my work desktop PC quiet enough for my liking by replacing fans, heatsinks and a passively cooled graphics card.

Now all I can hear is everyon else's PC's whining around me (there not even that close!).

</comment><comment><USER35> It's less powerful, but personally, I've replaced my Intel NUC case with one of these Akasa fanless chassis:

[http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list....](http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless%20Chassis&type_sub=Fanless%20NUC)

The thing is not perfect, the case can get quite hot, specially in summer, but it works reasonably well.

I use the thing as a media center (xbmc/kodi), and it's quite nice to have a fanless/zero noise setup for this usage.

<comment><USER92> I have exactly the same, and I'm very pleased with it. I use it as my main home computer, which includes occasional use when I'm working from home.

It overheated once (Linux/Ubuntu suspended automatically), my room was also 28°C or something and I'd been encoding videos non-stop for hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Quiet enough to protect against this attack? (Using noise of cpu to extract data)

[https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775](https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775)

</comment><comment><USER75> This is some seriously slick design! Congrats to OP for achieving the goal.

<comment><USER21> Thanks, and yes — Streacom did really well on the design. It has a brutalist aesthetic to it that folks will probably love or hate.

For those that like the looks but want moar powerrr, Streacom have an actively-cooled version on the drawing board. Do an image search for "Streacom DA4" if you're interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Excellent post, reminds me of [http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless- server](http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless-server)

</comment><comment><USER95> Interesting project. I was playing with the idea of running Linux on one of those little Chinese Qotom PCs without fan for a server, but I live in Portugal where it can get very hot in the summer and decided that the potential fire hazard is not worth it.

Overclocking, fanless PC, etc. are all fine if you can make sure that there is no problem if the ambient temperature raises to 40 C - or even higher, if the machine is accidentally exposed to sunlight. I don't trust most existing fanless solutions to work reliably under such conditions.

</comment><comment><USER59> If you're removing the GPU heatsink and fans, buying a dual-fan card isn't necessarily a dealbreaker depending on the design. For example, this 1050Ti from EVGA has two fans but the board itself is pretty small. [https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs](https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs)

[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681448...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487292)

</comment><comment> matthew-wegner Real late to this thread, but for the last ~10 years I've run my desktop in the adjacent room's closet. My desk has the monitors, speakers, USB hub for peripherals, with cables running through the wall to the actual tower/UPS/etc. It's a great setup if your living space can accommodate it (the adjacent room is my bedroom, but I shut this computer down at night).

I started doing this because quiet computers just weren't available at decent horsepower. Rad to see a build like this!

</comment><comment><USER96> I was wondering about these cases where the metal outside is directly connected to the CPU. Would this make it possible to kill your machine by touching it with a static charge?

<comment><USER17> The CPU's heatspreader is not connected to any leads on the CPU. The case should be grounded through the power supply, therefore, it should be like touching ground with static charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Apple's iMac is an excellent budget alternative to this approach, as long as fan noise under high load is acceptable. 99% of my usage is not under high load, so it works out to be silent effectively any time I'm not wearing headphones. Using the CPU and/or GPU and/or writing gigabytes to the SSD will wind up the fans, so this is not even remotely "always silent for power users" – but it's always silent for general non-coder usage!

</comment><comment><USER98> I won a silent computer 5+ years ago as a prize at a lan party. SSD drives, two of the best passively coolable gpu at the time (ATI I Believe?), passive CPU cooler, and the whole case was lined with musicians sound absorbing foam. I think it did have an optional 240mm fan but I never heard it even when I turned it on. It was so nice that I have built my newest computer in the same way (though I did put some big storage drives in it).

</comment><comment><USER99> I've been using a fanless Steacom case for my HTPC for years now. It's a little pricy, but well worth it given that it looks like a high end DVR.

</comment><comment><USER100> My 2009 Mac Pro is the quietest computer I have. I gave up when I installed a server cabinet in my computer room though. Those 1U units are friggin loud.

</comment><comment><USER101> I dream of a passively cool stationary machine with a heat sink case that is essentially a Menger sponge. For maximizing the surface/volume ratio.

</comment><comment><USER102> I did a similar (but much more ugly) project a few years ago, and found that the result was that one could then hear various electrical crackling sounds from inductors transformers and capacitors, especially from the power supply and motherboard. It actually sounded worse than a macbook pro which didn't make as much electrical noise.

</comment><comment><USER103> I've been interested in passively cooled PCs for a while now. Particularly, I've been considering building a computer which outputs its heat into a wall using heatpipes and a metal plate heat spreader. Although I can't find any case of this being done by anyone else, so I'm not sure if it's a crazy idea or not.

<comment><USER104> It's been done with water cooling and a car radiator on the wall ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> So I'm guessing passive cooling like this is only obtainable at stock clocks and low voltages? How does it handle PUBG?

I'd also like to present the loudest computer I've ever seen as a counterexample.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ)

<comment><USER49> Since he described how his cpu cooling is capable of dissipating up to 105W and he uses a 65W cpu, he can overclock a little. He is also using fast memory and a 1050ti is quite capable of running pubg well. Based on that pubg should run well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> >[it] doesn't have a single fan. Indeed, it doesn't have any moving parts at all. It's totally silent — 0dB.

Things without moving parts emit sound. LED lights are a simple example. Anytime you have a wave -- be it mechanical or electrical -- you'll have some of the harmonics will 'bleed' into the acoustic spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER107> Built a for normal desktop use a nearly silent gaming MiniITX build, it hums from the graphics card when gaming. Fractal Design Node 304, ASUS Z170I Pro Gaming, Intel i7 6700k, Samsung M2 SSD, ASUS Strix Gaming OC Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler, Corsair PowerSupply (PSU) CS550M. Runs Linux well.

</comment><comment><USER108> I don't have a desktop PC right now but if I needed one I'd just place it in the basement or a closet (with enough ventilation), and wire the screen, HIDs, and a few USB connectors to my desk. Bam, no noise. However, it's cool (indeed) to see these silent constructions, though.

</comment><comment><USER109> My Mac mini does not have a hard drive in it. It is completely silent most of the time. (A fan is running, but I cannot hear it even in the middle of the night.) When building software or playing certain videos, the fan speed increases with the result that I hear a quiet white noise.

<comment><USER110> Yeah, I love my mac mini for that. For a computer this silent I even find it remarkably good value. However, there isn't much else positive I can say about mac/their eco system...

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> [https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks- disk/](https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-disk/) <= has a bit about sound too, read it it's worth it

</comment><comment><USER112> But can you make it completely black?

<comment><USER21> The DB4 already has a black version: [http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless- chassis/](http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-chassis/) then click the Gallery tab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> Samsung Evo drives have a built in hardware error, where the read speeds diminish with age.

The firmware hides the read-speed decrease, or prolongs the detection of it, by shuffling data around in the background.

Poor choice of SSDs, Id go with SanDisk Extreme Pro or any other version even Intel.

</comment><comment><USER114> My first silent system was about 17 years ago that booted Linux from a floppy drive into RAM.

This was before solid state storage options were affordable.

It was a Pentium 1 (can't remember the model) and I had disconnected the PSU fan. Ran for a long time and I used it mostly as a router.

</comment><comment><USER115> I have a completely silent PC from Cirrus7. I'm pretty happy with it. But it does not have dedicated GPU like the one in the article.

[https://www.cirrus7.com](https://www.cirrus7.com)

</comment><comment><USER50> Seasonic has has a 400W fanless power supply for a few years now.

The new 600W: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium- fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)

</comment><comment><USER116> See linutop fanless computers, less powerful but much more compact [http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html](http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html)

</comment><comment><USER117> many components on motherboards assume at least some airflow Encasing in horizontally in a metal box could lead to premature failure due to increased temperatures, even if the cpu is relatively cool.

<comment> mark-r The entire outside of the case is a heat sink. If there's any convection flow whatsoever it shouldn't be too far above ambient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> please tell me he has a really loud mechanical keyboard to go with it

<comment><USER21> Nope, rubber dome.

I'm actually on the lookout for a wired, backlit, white/aluminium, chiclet, TKL keyboard. Basically something like the Apple Keyboard but sans NumKeypad, backlit and keyed for Linux/PC. Bonus points if it has a column of macro keys on the left.

If anyone knows of one please drop me a line.

<comment><USER118> didn't notice this comment until now.

This is a somewhat deep rabbit hole, but what I will tell you is that you'll probably have a hard time finding what you want in a chiclet keyboard because there's not much of a market for chiclet keyboards among keyboard enthusiasts. Chiclet is both a switching mechanism and a keycap; most of the keyboard- enthusiast community is working with setups that involve separate switches and keycaps that are interchangeable.

What you probably want in practice is the following characteristics: a specific key layout, all of the keys should be the same height, the key travel should be low (i.e., the amount of distance you have to depress the keys before registering a keystroke). No idea if you want the keys to make noise or not, or how stiff you want the springs to be, but that's customizable too. If you want chiclet keys because you want low key travel, you have a lot of options. If you want something really thin, there are way, way fewer options.

A single left column of macro keys is not something I've ever seen, but the one keyboard I can think off of hand that has a similar layout is the Red Scarf II, which has two columns of macro keys on the left side; unfortunately it's not currently in production. Some people use an external num pad and put the num pad on the left for this purpose. [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red- scarf-ii-ver-b-custom-mecha...](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red-scarf-ii-ver- b-custom-mechanical-keyboard-kit)

I personally use a KBD75, which is an aluminum body, tenkeyless layout with a right-hand column, and it's all programmable with QMK so you can make any key do whatever you want. For example, I have a key that, when I press it, reverses the position of the Alt and Win keys, so that I can switch between layouts for either PC or Mac and have the Alt, Command, and Windows keys always in their correct location. Images and build information here: [https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A](https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A)

you can get keycaps that have a flat profile that are interchangeable with any MX-Compatible switch. DSA Granite is a super popular flat-profile keyset like that: [https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite- keyset/](https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite-keyset/)

it's pretty common to add rubber o-rings to the keys to reduce the travel. But chiclet keys are generally going to restrict the rest of your options.

Anyway reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards has a bunch of info on all this stuff.

<comment><USER21> Agreed, it's a very deep rabbit hole. The 12" PowerBook G4 that I bought back in 2004 had the best keyboard I've ever used — I still have it and occasionally use it. But I've been trying to hunt down a desktop equivalent ever since (but with backlighting and TKL ANSI layout). Haven't succeeded so far. Still trying though.

Although my highest priority (by far) is low noise, I do prefer short travel/registration and a soft landing as well.

Prompted by your post, I did some more research and decided to upgrade(?) my gaming keyboard to a Logitech G Pro TKL [https://www.logitechg.com/en- us/product/pro-gaming-keyboard](https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/product/pro- gaming-keyboard). I haven't tried Romer-G switches so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Meanwhile, now that Corsair's exclusive rights to the Cherry MX Silent (Red) have expired, I'm hoping to see a lot more keyboards with that switch make their way into the market. The Corsair Strafe RGB was tempting, but the light spill from under the caps was far too gaudy and distracting for my liking.

Cherry MX Silent (Red) switches with landing pads and o-rings seems like a combination that would work well (for me) for gaming.

For the DB4 and daily driver usage, though, the hunt goes on. I'll keep using the wired Apple Keyboard until someone else comes up with a TKL clone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> For those interested in doing this, the case manufacturer Zalman also makes a series of atx format cases where the whole body is a radiator, with heatpipes to a cpu block.

</comment><comment> amiga-workbench My machine is almost completely silent.

Semi-passive power supply, passive GTX1050 and a noctua CPU cooler that is just barely audible when the room is silent.

The coil whine is irritating though.

</comment><comment><USER119> Isn't there any liquid we could immerse the electronic in for cooling? I'm sure this must exist in high density industrial applications.

<comment><USER120> 3M make a non conductive solution for exactly this application. I remember reading about an overclocking rig using something like it pumped through a radiator submerged in liquid nitrogen. Was pretty cool but the solution ended up turning into a gel at low temps [https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec- us/applications/immersion-...](https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec- us/applications/immersion-cooling/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> My computer is completely silent. (It's an iPad.)

</comment><comment><USER122> How about a fanless Intel NUC, boom done.

</comment><comment><USER123> Why is this person going off the grid

<comment><USER21> The Australian state I live in has the highest electricity prices in the country, and amongst the highest in the world — so there's a simple financial reason to defect from the grid. Then there are the self-sufficiency angles (produce/control your own power) and the preparedness angles (grid power always fails in bushfires) to consider as well. They are all the reasons I need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> I'm not sure. Is it wise to be putting heat pipes that close to an electrolytic capacitor?

</comment><comment><USER125> This ought to go perfectly with my IBM Model M keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER126> Now I want to know whether it has a system beep. ␇

<comment><USER21> No, it does not. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> Do the skull canyon NUCs have fans?

<comment><USER128> All NUCs have fans. The Skull Canyon is infamously loud.

<comment><USER127> Interesting, I've been looking for a small computer that would make a good HTPC, and I thought the Skull Canyon NUC might be a good choice. I sort of assumed that that form factor would always be fanless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER129> I wish they made a smaller chassis.

</comment><comment><USER130> simplest solution: buy an iMac.

<comment><USER131> Regular iMacs are jet engine loud once you throw any CPU or GPU load at them.

I think the iMac Pro is much better in this regard but it's not sustainable as a workstation machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER132> Same system on silent laptop :)

<comment><USER133> I'd love to know more about this : what "system" did you use on a silent laptop, how do you get rid of the fan ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> you do not hear your pc when it is located in another room/building :)

</comment><comment><USER135> Steve Jobs dream machine.

</comment><comment><USER136> I shot a cheapish Lenovo YOGA 710 laptop. It also has no fans.

<comment><USER49> It also has no power ;)

<comment><USER136> fine for office stuff :) but you are right, no main computer

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> Sometimes I can "hear" my processor working through my headphones. I'm not sure how, but, for example, when I scroll down a page I can hear high frequency chirping in my headphones which stops as soon as I stop scrolling.

<comment><USER14> Likely it's your GPU or LCD panel leaking RF. Try turning your monitor off and see if scrolling is still audible.

<comment><USER33> These phenomena are more typically caused by ground loops and shield currents in the computer itself. Reordering plug-in cards (e.g. moving a sound card to a different slot) or isolating/removing the slot bracket can help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> High pitched electric buzzing or hard disk screeching seem to be worse than fan noise nowadays with all the great coolers available.

That being said, within a year of using Windows 10 four (!) of my hard drives have begun making loud screeching sounds. They're technically fine, but still unusable.

<comment><USER139> I built a fanless (technically had fans, but only turned on if needed), semi- high-performance open bench-style system several years ago.

It's really pretty nice in theory. The reality is that some components still emit a good bit of noise, and unlike fans, the noise they tend to emit isn't very pleasant. Power-hungry graphics cards are by far some of the worst offenders; without being masked by fan noise, they can be incredibly loud and irritating. An open bench PC is definitely cool, but was kind of a mistake in my case.

Fan tech has improved to the point that I think, more often than not, you really _want_ to have them. Otherwise it's time spent trying to eliminate other noise sources that would otherwise be conveniently and usually pleasantly masked by a little wooshing.

<comment><USER138> Completely agreed. When GPUs do this, I just declare them defective and send them back. It comes down to a lack of quality of the electrical components and simply shouldn't be a problem, especially with the current GPU prices.</comment></comment></comment>


A Golden Age for Software Developers - <AUTHOR> http://medium.com/packt-publishing/disruption-738ea528887e

<comment><USER2> Supply is low _at the prices many employers want to pay_. I am not sure about anything beyond that.</comment>


How a Water Bear Survives When It's Dry - happy-go-lucky https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/science/tardigrades-water-bears-dried-out.html <comment><AUTHOR> Great to see this in the NYT. I'm working with Thomas (who, in addition to being a truly exceptional scientists is a really great guy) on understanding the underlying biophysics of _how_ these disordered proteins facilitate stress protection.

We have some cool stuff coming along...

<comment><USER2> Do you know if a structure of any of these proteins is published anywhere? I checked the PDB, but didn't find anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many of these proteins are intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), meaning they don't actually have a set 3D structure, but instead existing in a kind of 'cloud' (ensemble) of interconverting conformations. A consequence of this is that there is no 'one' representative structure, due to this conformational heterogeneity.

People used to (very reasonably) assume that 'disordered' just meant totally random, so the thought was these disordered proteins behaved like a random polymer. However, just like in folded proteins, the amino acid sequence of these IDPs has a major impact on the way these clouds of conformations behave. Happy to discuss more here or 'offline' (see my profile for contact info) - this is basically my whole PhD, so, you know, I can go more in depth...

<comment><USER2> Yes (that's the fun part!) - I should have specified that I was just interested in getting an atomistic model of one of these tardigrade proteins to play around with in an MD simulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can't help but to think about a very distant future where we use these same disordered proteins to truly freeze organic material, including ourselves. Maybe I could be dehydrated for a few thousand years on my way to another solar system no prob.

<comment><USER4> There's a cool element of this in the Three Body Problem, a sci-fi book, where aliens use dehydration to survive to disastrous conditions on their home planet. You might like the book: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IQO403K/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IQO403K/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why tardigrades have such high radiation tolerance as well. It turns out that dehydration is incredibly damaging, especially to DNA, and the same repair/protection systems for dealing with dehydration (such as DNA repair) tend to protect against high radiation doses as well.

<comment><USER6> The big question is - what's the cost? There is no free lunch. They're paying for it, or are limited by it, somehow and somewhere.

There's a "feature budget" in any organism, and it's the main reason why you can't have creatures that could fly, and run fast, and live underwater.

<comment><USER7> There's a feature budget only in that there's a cost/benefit restriction for every living thing. Usually the big cost is how many calories does this gene cost vs how much does this gene benefits the organism (or it's close relatives).

What's interesting about having high radiation resistance, is that I could see a cure or vaccine for cancer could be introducing (or possibly expressing) genes that cause our cells to spend a lot more calories to repair its DNA than they already do. And the skeptic in me thinks it'll probably be marketed as a diet pill :)

<comment><USER6> It's gonna sell like hot cakes.

 _" High metabolism and cures cancer? I'll take five!"_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Trisolarans anyone?

<comment><USER9> I was thinking the Zerg. This is like an stepping stone to mutalisks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just about the coolest little critters on Earth! They're cute, they can survive just about anything reasonably thrown their way from hard vacuum to radiation, and now this. It makes me happy to know that regardless of how badly we as a species screw up ourselves or the biosphere, these little tardigrades won't even notice.

<comment><USER11> Just in case you missed that delightfully weird story from last month:

Google was working on putting live tardigrades into Android phones:

[http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/24/complicated-weird- beautifu...](http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/24/complicated-weird-beautiful- the-secret-google-project-to-put-an-aquarium-full-of-tiny-wiggly-water-bears- inside-your-phone/)

<comment><USER10> I did miss it! Thanks, this made my day. There was a movie from the late 80's, early 90's... and I remember a pimp with platform shoes that were also an aquarium. This... is better.

<comment><USER11> You made my day in return when I viewed your list of submitted stories. So much cool stuff!

(And another sign HN needs to step up its submission/upvoting algorithms/UX. I do think so many HN-worthy stories get lost each day just because of this.)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, that's really kind of you to say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The biggest fascinating point about Tardigrades is that they can survive in _space_.

I think the implication of this should be explored further.

<comment><USER13> That's what the article is about; when they dry out, they produce an irregular protein which essentially stiffens and preserves the cells while protecting them from environmental damage. When they are rehydrated, the protein dissolves and the cells resume their normal functions.

It's pretty cool, and could indeed lead the way to hibernative naptosis.

<comment><USER14> Drying out wouldn't be the only problem in space though, there are other problems... (Btw how long they can survive like that though?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel#Ecological_and_behaviora...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel#Ecological_and_behavioral_adaptations) store fat in their humps

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks like the trisolarans weren't so bad after all.</comment>


How These Things Work – A book about CS from first principles (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://reasonablypolymorphic.com/book/preface <comment><USER2> Nice. I did an EE degree many years ago even though I wanted to work in software. The single best course I did was to design, simulate and have fabricated a 4 bit microprocessor. It completely solidified my understanding of how computations took place. Hopefully, texts like this will do the same for others.

<comment><USER3> In a similar vein, I highly recommend the MOOC "nand2tetris" which progresses smoothly from simple logic circuits right up to a high level Java-like programming language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this kind of Books! In a much more general tone, there is "The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World After An Apocalypse" by Lewis Dartnell. This explains the first principles of a lot of things we take for granted in the modern world, from agriculture to food and clothing, medicine, chemistry and more.

This book about CS principles is a great complement to that!

<comment><USER5> As I posted the last time this book came up [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22294655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22294655) that book would be more accurately called _The Misinformation_. If you follow the instructions in it you will die. Better alternatives are listed in my linked comment.

<comment><USER6> I agree. I was deeply disappointed by "The Knowledge..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my favorite books on subject is The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles by Noam Nisan [https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems- Building-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/0262640686)

<comment><USER8> Would you say that this book is still relevant, now that it is 15 years old?

<comment><USER9> It's wonderfully relevant because it takes you through the basics and those are all still the same. Their simulator software was already old when I went through the book a few years ago, but I'm sure it still works fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recommend Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold [1]. It is far more comprehensive than the OP, goes from pre- computer code, to electrical circuits, to an overview of assembly. No prior knowledge needed except how to read.

1\. [https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware- Softw...](https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware- Software/dp/0735611319)

<comment><USER5> _Code_ 's good but it doesn't cover Kleisli categories and Kleisli composition, Peano arithmetic, parametric polymorphism, sum types, pattern matching, or any of numerous other things covered in Maguire's _How These Things Work_. So it's not accurate to say _Code_ is "far more comprehensive"; _Code_ mentions FORTRAN, ALGOL, COBOL, PL/1, and BASIC, but the example programs it contains are written in assembly, ALGOL, and BASIC. It doesn't contain any programs you can actually run except for an three-line BASIC program and some even simpler assembly programs.

<comment><USER11> It's very depressing that I've been a developer for 8 years and I've never heard any of those terms you mentioned. I'm self taught but I've always felt like I should go back and really learn the fundamentals.

<comment><USER12> I'm not saying you shouldn't always strive to learn new things (for your own personal growth and curiosity), but I think it's important to point out that the link between being a developer and knowing about these things-- esoteric topics of applied Mathematics-- is pretty weak.

Imagine a carpenter spending their time getting a chemistry degree in order to better understand how wood glue works.

<comment><USER13> I don't think so. Understanding what goes on underneath the hood is really what differentiates decent coders from great engineers. Compare the data structures of Subversion to those of git. Or look at some of the work John Carmack did in video games. That requires depth.

If your goal is to be a carpenter who puts together housing frames, you absolutely don't need depth. You're also interchangeable and get paid union blue collar wages. On the other hand, if you want to be a craftsman who invents new wooden things, you need depth in some direction, be that structural engineering, artistic, or otherwise.

There's a ceiling you hit unless you learn much more of this stuff. The direction is your choice (but new APIs ain't it -- we're talking depth).

<comment><USER14> Not everyone needs to be great.

What I actually want to say is that OP shouldn't feel guilty about not knowing those things. It's okay to want to master these things, if it's what you want. But it's pointless to feel bad about not knowing them.

<comment><USER5> Of course there is no necessity for excellence. The only necessary thing about human life is death; everything else is optional. Before your death, you can cultivate excellence in yourself, or not — many people instead cultivate hatred, addiction, or greed. There are many ways to cultivate excellence; learning is only one of them, and there are many things to learn. Mathematics, and in particular logic (which is what we are talking about here) are the foundation of all objective knowledge, but objective knowledge is not the only kind that has value.

The true philosopher, motivated by love for the truth rather than pride, is so noble in spirit that when she sees evidence that she may be in error, she immediately investigates it rather than turning away; and if she discovers that the evidence is valid, she immediately changes her position. I see such nobility so routinely among mathematicians and logicians that it is noteworthy in the rare cases where it is absent. I see it rarely outside of that field; in some fields, like psychology and theology, I do not see it at all. So I conclude — tentatively — that excellence in mathematics and logic promotes humility and nobility of spirit, which is the highest and most praiseworthy kind of excellence.

So, while I do not think the OP should feel guilty about not knowing those things, I also do not agree with the implication that there is nothing praiseworthy about knowing them.

<comment><USER14> Well, I agree with you. I think that pursuing our interests in mathematics, music, literature or whatever strikes our fancy is admirable. And I think it makes us happier, wiser and more humble as you say.

At the same time, I maintain that we shouldn't feel guilty if we aren't doing it that, for whatever reason. Sure, sometimes we actually want to pursuit some of these things, but don't. Maybe it's because we have a messy schedule, we can't organize ourselves to prioritize passions.

Feeling guilty does little to actually make you pursue your passions. You're better off learning about habits and how to pick ones that serve you.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, except that I don't think pursuing our interests in _whatever strikes our fancy_ is admirable.

<comment><USER14> As long as it's not hurting someone, anything goes as far as I'm concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For a do-it-yourself version of chapter 1 (about building complex circuits using only nands), I can recommend [http://nandgame.com/](http://nandgame.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> _A few years ago, I asked my engineer friend about how much of civilization he could rebuild singlehandedly, should he survive some hypothetical apocalyptic event. "All of it," he replied. "Not all at once, but I know enough to be able to puzzle together the pieces I don't know right this second."_

While I admire the Connecticut-Yankee optimism of the engineer, as a non engineer I am seriously skeptical about how a single engineer could know enough about the chemistry, materials, physics, CS etc. I can explain what a battery, or transistor is supposed to do but wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to actually make one. In this scenario are we leaving the bunker to break into Bell Labs (or some research university library at least)?

<comment><USER17> I share your skepticism. Seems to me the engineer is falling prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect[1]. Rather than knowing enough to be able to puzzle together all the pieces they don't know, I'd wager they don't know enough to be able to discern what they won't be able to figure out.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

<comment><USER18> We studied a lot of detailed semiconductor physics in my engineering degree. Certainly loads of details were left out, but knowing something is possible and roughly along which lines it could be achieved is a huge hurdle in the innovation process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Half-way into it's introducing monads and Maybe. Feels like teaching a stack machine after talking about the visitor pattern. There's good information here but I'm not sure it covers the important fundamentals (such that I could give to a beginner).

</comment><comment><USER20> This looks really cool, thank you.

Another book I particularly like in the same style are Feynman (lesser known) lectures on computation: [https://amzn.to/2SSoJaR](https://amzn.to/2SSoJaR) where he takes you from single instructions all the way to quantum computing

</comment><comment><USER5> Neat, and it looks like it's under a 3-clause BSD license, too: [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/master/LICENSE)

And it's tackling pretty advanced material — a bunch of category-theory stuff that I have no idea about. This is exciting!

It looks like maybe it's unfinished: [https://reasonablypolymorphic.com/book/tying-it-all- together...](https://reasonablypolymorphic.com/book/tying-it-all- together.html) ends, "Really, we're just getting started," and then (the current version of) the book ends. What a cliffhanger ending!

It doesn't seem to yet cover circuitry; the hardware it discusses seems to be a two-tape Turing machine, much like BF. The author seems to have been simulating the machine by hand to generate the included execution traces.

I had a hard time finding the source at first: [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/master/site/static/book/machine- diagrams.html) has a bunch of attribute-embedded &-escaped SVG (including XMLPIs!) that he almost certainly didn't type like that. That file is duplicated at [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/master/docs/book/machine- diagrams.html) in the same format.

As it turns out, the source for that post is in [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/blob/master/site/httw/2016-11-01-machine- diagrams.markdown), with embedded Haskell to produce the SVGs. The build scripts looks like they might be in [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/tree/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/tree/master/src) and [https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/tree/...](https://github.com/isovector/reasonablypolymorphic.com/tree/master/scripts) but I can't tell where the code for generating SVG comes from. ("stack install" maybe? But then is it datetime, sitepipe, or strptime?) So I can't figure out how to fix the text in the SVGs to not crash into the diagram lines.

Careful about cloning the repo. It's a quarter gig!

<comment><USER21> The author states that computer science has little to do with computers on the first page so I would not expect circuitry.

<comment><USER5> I don't disagree with him on that, but there's really quite a bit of stuff in there about quasi-circuitry-like things: "machines" and "latches" and things like

> _In the next chapter, we 'll investigate how to make machines that _change > over time _, which will be the basis for us to_ store information _. From > there it 's just a short hop to actual computers!_

so I think that grounding abstract computation in something that can clearly be constructed in real life is actually very much a concern of the book, even if he's not planning to cover IEEE-754 denormals, the cost of TLB flushes, or strategies for reducing the bit error rate due to metastability when crossing clock domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I never heard of "first principles" until Elon Musk used it. (Not a native English speaker) Now I see it everywhere.

Must be the new overhyped term. "We start from first principles, just like Elon Musk".

After looking at Google trends, I might be wrong, so nevermind ;) [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=First%20...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=First%20principles)

<comment><USER23> UK here - I remember it back in college thirty+ years ago as in "build X from first principles", which could mean (e.g.) implement an algorithm without out using library calls.</comment></comment>